Tye

I dig in at the outskirts of the line of light that creates a border between the Shadowland and the Outer Rim. From this vantage point I can make out the dark pit where the strangers landed when they were thrown in the crash. Their smoked out mini-zip sits in a steaming heap several feet away, which is probably lucky because if it had kept grinding through the dirt it might have landed on top of them.

Beside me, Ke-am gives a low growl and drags along on his belly. I reach over and stroke his fur. "Easy, boy." He's impatient too. We both want to go down there and get a closer look but it's not a good idea. The Stalkers are never far from their traps and as much as they might turn a blind eye to my illegal salvage in the Shadowlands, they wouldn't take kindly to my getting into affairs with aliens. And having any association with one that looks like him is quite probably a death sentence.

I hang back and wait. Before long, a hulking mamot lumbers over the rise. Its giant head sways as it walks with clomping feet that kick up dust with every step. Its claws dig grooves into the earth. On her back, a troop of six Stalkers sit astride the mamot's carrier platform. They're dressed in black shadow cloaks and blend perfectly with the murky earth of the Shadowland and the equally dark leathery skin of the mamot.

As they near the hole in the ground, one traces down one of the mamot's large horns. With an agile step he jumps to the ground. He throws back his hood and beams a light into the pit. I recognise him, Hanzor. He's a nice enough guy but arrogant, greedy, and he doesn't like surprises.

"Ho there!" he calls and I wonder if the aliens speak our language enough to understand him.

There's a muffled response from the hole but I can't make it out. Hanzor laughs which makes me all the more curious about what they said. I scramble closer. It's risky because I'm now in the light cast by the nearest Outer Rim tower sphere, but my own shadow cloak blends with the rock and I'm covered in enough murk at the best of times that I'm betting to odds they won't see me.

Beside me Ke-am whines and goes to shimmy alongside me but I wave him back. A little moon-skitter like me can go unnoticed but even covered in murk and dirt Ke-am's size stands out against the dunes. He whines again but keeps his place, gazing after me as I continue to crawl away. I keep to the dunes so the rise of my body over the dirt won't stand out.

"You got a mouth on ya, don't you little moon-skitter?" Hanzor calls down the hole. "Better watch it else I decide to roast it from your face." With a grin, he levels a plasma pulser, pointing it down into the hole. The weapon's searing white glow gleams in the darkness.

"Let us out of here you ugly baull-scat!" the girl's voice calls back up to him.

"Wish!" hisses another voice, reprimanding the girl. It's soft and feminine, too, so I can't figure out which of the three must have spoken. Could their droid have a feminine voice unit?

"Watch your tongue, void-scum. I ain't above cutting it out of you." Hanzor turns to his crew who are scrambling down from the back of the carrier beast. "Haul them up and make sure you secure them with zap-links. We don't want them running off or crying out for help."

They haul out the robot first. I still can't get a great look at it. It seems to be cooperative and calm. I wonder if it's programmed for defence or if its subroutines prevent it acting against a Narian command.

The girl comes up next and she's far less cooperative. She yanks against the three guys gripping her arms. The hood falls off the guy at her back and the white rims of his eyes stand out against his dark skin. I know him as Erron. "Stop wriggling ya void-scum." He levels a plasma pulser at her hip and digs in slightly.

She twists her head to glare at him. "Make me!" Erron's white teeth gleam in the low light and he yanks her hair. She winces and I imagine she's feeling the ache because they're not being gentle despite her having so slight a figure. A third man grips her wrists between his fingers and then slams a zap-link over them before shoving her forward. She slams against the ground and huffs out a breath before turning back to the men. Her crystal-ice eyes gleam, flashing with anger. She spits at them.

They haul up the last figure from the trap and my breath catches as I see the coat, the hair, the face, the eyes. The men's hands fall away as they finally seem to see it too.

"Eagrim's beak!" Hanzor gasps, stepping back.

"Niah, run!" the girl shouts. She pushes herself to her feet and begins scrambling away but her friend seems frozen in the stunned gazes of their captors.

Two of the six men drop to their knees. Against the dirt their breath fluffs up clouds of murk as they mutter.

"Bellamy."

"He's returned!"

"It's Bellamy."

Hanzor grimaces, and triggers a master control. Several dozen volts rip through the zap-links around the girl's wrists and she convulses as the electricity pulses through her. Those things deliver a hurt so hard you wish for a tick that they had floated you in the nine-voids instead, but they don't cause any lasting damage. Still, the girl seems much more subdued and lays motionless against the dirt after the convulsions stop.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Hanzor reaches down and yanks up the Stalker nearest him. "Cut it out you ignorant murk-scum. Of course it isn't the Captain. That legend is two hundred narcycles old! Does this moon-skitter look two hundred narcycles to you?"

The man looks unsure but Hanzor steps forward and grabs the collar of the Captain's coat. He leans in close to glare into those penetrating, eerie eyes. "You're…" he shakes his head. "No, you can't be him." His voice fades away and he swallows. "But, you're near enough to fake it. Certainly enough to keep Thomis happy. Come on, guys! This haul is going to mint us enough staples to live in the Inner Circle for a hundred circuits. Take him!"

Still uncertain, the other men hesitate, but with Hanzor's grip soon joined by Erron's and another of their companions, the other men soon fall into line. They snap a zap-link around Bellamy's wrists, haul all three captors up onto the carrier platform of their mamot, and head in the direction of the nearest Outer Rim tower.

***

Niah

"Chortessa's guts!" I whisper. I wonder that I can't come up with a more apt expression of the predicament we are in but I still don't know exactly how screwed we are.

"Not the friendliest of welcomes," Hart states in his bland, understated way.

"You think? These baull-scat void-scum better not lay another volt on me or I'm going to rip their teeth out through their noses and shove them up their–"

"Wish," I say, trying to stem her tirade before she gets any more worked up. I lift my hands to my aching head. They're bound before me so I don't have full range of motion but at least I can press a thumb into the throbbing pain between my eyes.

Wish glances at me, concerned. "You okay?" She shuffles forward, her hands still bound behind her by the zap-links.

I'm so wiped out that I just want to sleep but I don't want to close my eyes. Not in this place, usually not ever, but I know I can't stay awake forever. The swaying lumber of the mamot beneath us is almost relaxing except for the fact that I don't feel entirely secure at this height. Even with the six men surrounding us, it seems precarious to let my guard down.

"I'm okay. I just don't know what's going on."

The guy nearest us leans close to whisper but I imagine his commander can still hear him. "You're him, ain't ye? They always said he'd come back. We been waiting and watching so long."

I swallow because I'm already dreading what I think this guy believes. "I don't know what you mean."

"I became a Stalker because I believed in ye. Ever since I was a boy. Nothing but a moon-skitter myself, maybe even younger than her." He lifted his chin to indicate Wish. "But I believed ye would be back. And I believed I'd be the one to find ye."

"Erron, shut your trap," the man guiding the mamot by a heavy set of reigns snarls. The Narian beside us hunches his shoulders, sits back, and falls silent. But his eyes remain fixed on me. In fact, five sets of eyes cling so tightly to my back and face that my skin crawls and I wish I could detach from it and step out of myself.

"I'm not what you think."

As we get closer and closer to the giant glowing sphere, more and more light casts out across us. The men haul us down from the mamot. The commander unclicks the zap-links from my wrists and tucks them into his pocket. He lifts his plasma pulser to show he's still well armed and holds a grip on my arm so tight that I don't have the strength to pull away even if I truly had the energy. Together, we march through the entry at the foot of the tower, up the lifter platform, and into a busy room.

Silence falls around us as we enter but the commander ignores the rising whispers around us and marches through. His grip on my arm tightens but instead of wincing I lift my chin. From the outside, I imagine it looks like he's gently guiding me through the weave of people, so it's no wonder that rather than stepping forward to intercede, people are dropping to their knees.

I cringe as, one after another, people seem to see in me the face of their long-awaited saviour. A hum of prayer, whispers of wonder, and a flow of people gesturing and prostrating surrounds us.

An elderly man at the edge of the crowd cries out. "Bellamy! Bellamy you have returned to save us!" His cry echoes around the room above the hum of the whispering voices. I flinch at the thud of a plasma pulser cracking the man across the head. He grunts, crumpling to the floor in a whimper. The guard standing over him kicks him in the gut with a heavy boot and he falls silent.

The crowd seems torn between hovering close and scattering away, afraid of further rebuke from the Stalkers. A brave old woman shuffles toward us, her hands outstretched. Beside me the commander snarls. With a nod of his head two of his men rush her, pulling her aside. I glance at him but he's hiding his displeasure behind a mask of open pride. I shake my head, disgusted at it all. "You know I'm not him. Why don't you say something!" I hiss.

"What, and lower your value? No way in the nine-voids. If they want to worship a ghost then let them. They can tear you to shreds for the fallacy after I've collected my staples."

He guides us through the maze of people and down another corridor. The rooms are oddly shaped, perhaps because they're housed within a giant column of spheres, or because they are mostly cobbled together from old scraps of tech that don't look like they have seen a maintenance technician in generations.

The people around us seem to become less populous the further through the sphere we travel and eventually, we pass only a handful of well-armed men. The tech becomes more derelict and dirty. Eventually, the commander pulls me up beside a gritty dark room. At the far edge, its window gazes out on the blackness of night but is secure behind thick layers of tempered glass. He thrusts me forward and I stumble into the room. The men behind him unlock the zap-links on Wish and Hart, then give them both similar shoves. We all turn to the door where they stand guarding the only exit.

"Right, keep the noise down, and don't bother trying to hack the door, droid. Its controls aren't electronic, they're mechanical. You need a key." He waves a chunky old key like the kind that was used before tech and snickers as he slams the door closed. I hear the heavy lock clink with a finality that makes me feel truly trapped for the first time since our capture.

After the men are gone, we spend a short while walking the walls of the enclosure trying to find a way out but there is nothing. Every inch of the place is made of cold iron. I feel the chill of it as I sit down.

I lean my back against the smooth curve of the outer wall and tip my head to gaze out of the window at the scatter of stars. From here, they're not so obscured by the murk and are almost pretty to look at in that strange, longing for a home among them, kind of way.

"I'm sorry, Niah. I should have been watching where we were going," Wish whispers. She sits beside me. She's stiff, as if she's trying to keep as much of her body from touching the cold surfaces of the floor and walls as possible. Even so, her little body shivers in the chill. I shrug out of my coat and wrap it around her shoulders. She tucks her arms in, sinking into it with a sigh. "What about you?"

I smile. "One advantage of my condition is that I run hotter than normal I guess." I shrug. "You need the warmth more than I do."

She sighs. "Thanks, Niah." Wish lifts a hand to smother her yawn.

I reach out and draw her to me. "Come on, get some sleep. I suspect we're stuck here at least until someone comes to see us in the morning. The commander might want his bounty but, with the way people reacted outside, I don't think they mean to keep us prisoner, not forever."

"What if they do?"

"Then we'll figure it out. But for now, get some rest." She nods, and I settle her head on my knee. I run my fingers through her hair and before long her breath is smooth and even. I glance at Hart. "What about you?"

His orbs gaze at me and I feel like he's sad but who can tell what a droid is feeling? "I should conserve power." I nod, and then sigh as his hover-jets power down and he comes to rest. Even the orbs of his eyes blink out. Around me the silence is eerie.

I sit for a long while, not wanting to sleep, but I can't keep my eyes open. Fear runs through me. It drains me. Eventually, I give in and close my eyes, letting the exhaustion take me. Inside, as dreams start to flood my mind, I cling to the hope that I'll wake when the sun rises.